Bad News, Everyone

This is not looking good. I’ve been feverishly checking my inbox and have yet to run across a 100-page manifesto on the failures of local sports journalists, a manifesto I was expecting to receive no later than today. Granted, there’s still a ton of time before Friday comes to a close, but the situation is grim, to say the least.

I don’t even know what to think right now. I’ve gone to all this trouble clearing 100 pages of online space right here on this site and now? Now I’m at a loss as to how I’ll fill that space if my columnist doesn’t come through.

You may be wondering how I came to be fortunate enough to be promised a 100-page manifesto in the first place. Great question.

It all started on Tuesday night, when our would-be author John Stringer (@johnpstringer on the Twitter) went on a rampage, sending a flurry of tweets to a handful of local media members, including our good friend Ryan Divish. Stringer, it seemed, had a problem with Divish’s lack of subjectivity (???) towards the Mariners and let him know about it in a less-than-friendly manner. That spawned a revolt of sorts from Divish and his colleagues (myself, included), which led to the following pledge:

@ryandivish then where is your negativity about this team??? I havent read 1 line of it from you or anyone else..over the last decade?

As you can see, plain as day, we were promised a 100-page paper. Now, the deadline for this paper was set by me, which as I would later mention to John, comes with the territory. Having worked for a newspaper before, I can tell you that deadlines are not often in the writer’s control. That’s why I initially offered John the opportunity to write a 10-page paper, as opposed to something ten times bigger. But John being the ambitious sort opted to go the extra mile, which I can certainly respect. However, his failure to follow through up to this point is disconcerting. Who knows for sure, though. Maybe he’s feverishly scripting his manifesto as we speak. Let’s hope. Because people are legitimately excited about this manifesto:

I gotta be honest, as completely idiotic as this guy and his point are, if he ACTUALLY sends @alexssn a 100 page paper I’ll love him forever

Regardless, if fans are going to hold journalists to a certain level of unattainable accountability, then demand that those same journalists simply “do their job” to an ambiguous standard set by those without the credibility to determine such a standard, well, two can play that game.